Commercial Legal Counsel (RWO) at Robert Walters

• Robert Walters is hiring a Commercial Legal Counsel to join their Johannesburg team. This role involves drafting and negotiating commercial contracts, advising on data protection, and supporting legal projects across regions including the UK, Ireland, Middle East, Africa, and North America.
• Ideal for an attorney with 2-4 years' PQE seeking exposure to diverse and dynamic legal work.

About

• The successful candidate will assume responsibility for a broad range of legal work, with a particular emphasis on drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial contracts. Given that this role is largely commercial in nature, experience in commercial and corporate matters is essential. The successful candidate would be a primary legal point of contact for Data Protection, and prior experience in this field is preferred.
• Business-as-usual work will include being the main point of contact for the business on the negotiation and amendment of client contracts, as well ad hoc legal queries on existing and anticipated contractual relationships. The role supports the business across a region covering UK, Ireland, Middle East, Africa and North America.
• Although there is emphasis on contractual work, additional project work can be expected, which may involve (for example) the setting up of new entities in different territories and other international work, various company secretarial and corporate governance duties, handling litigation pre-action (and beyond, if required), employment matters, advising on data protection, reviewing technology contracts and delivering training to management and consultants on relevant legal developments.
• If you have a particular passion for a certain area of law then you will, where possible, be encouraged to develop this further.

Desired Skills & Experience

• The successful candidate will be a qualified attorney with 2 to 4 years' PQE, most of which has been gained in an in-house environment or at a recognised law firm or relevant corporate environment in commercial and/or corporate law. You will have a minimum of 2 years' experience drafting, reviewing and negotiating a range of general commercial contracts and will be able to demonstrate a genuine enthusiasm for the subject area.
• You will ideally have experience working in a Tech, TMT, Digital, New Technologies, Data or equivalent practice, or significant experience drafting, reviewing and negotiating all types of technology contracts e.g. SaaS, software licensing and support, consulting services.
• Of critical importance for this role is the ability to interact with legal and non-legal colleagues alike. You will frequently field queries from consultants with varying degrees of understanding of legal process/terminology, so an ability to deliver robust, commercial advice will be highly valued.